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Editor’s note: Since this article was written, the Archbishop of Canterbury, after public outcry, has rescinded the interfaith award given to Hafiz Ashrafi on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

You can’t reconcile with people by ignoring what they actually say.

The Church of England last week gave a prestigious award to a senior Islamic leader.

Who cares, you say.

Well you should care, because this story illustrates what I consider to be the incredible naivety of Western elites.

Archbishop of Canterbury Awards Hafiz Ashrafi

The Archbishop of Canterbury presented Hafiz Ashrafi with an award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation.

It’s a special award for people who do outstanding work building bridges between people of different faiths.

Ashrafi is the chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council — a group of high-ranking Islamic scholars.

Here’s a photo of the presentation.

You can see there the Archbishop presenting the Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation Award to the winner.

And in case you don’t recognise her, that’s his wife in the middle.

Why would the Church of England give one of Pakistan’s most eminent Islamic scholars such an award?

Was it because in 2007, as reported in The Guardian, he…

“ … had decided to honour Osama bin Laden. He is to be given the title of Saifullah, or Sword of God.”

Or perhaps Ashrafi was given the reconciliation award because in 2013 he was reported as saying that…

“ … suicide attacks in Afghanistan are lawful because NATO troops are invaders that have occupied the country.”

Ashrafi later said he had been taken out of context, claiming that suicide bombings were un-Islamic but that he could understand why Afghans were fighting back.

Or maybe Ashrafi was given the award for interfaith reconciliation out of deep appreciation for his support, in 2014…

“… of Islamic blasphemy laws that condemn people to death if they insult Muhammad or disrespect the Koran.”

Afterall, nothing says I’m a leader when it comes to co-operating with other faiths than… if you disrespect us, you’ll be put to death.

Can you see why I’m struggling to understand how it is that the Archbishop of Canterbury is giving this man a prize… rather than a very wide berth?

I wonder what Hafiz Ashrafi thought of the archbishop as she handed him the award.

Afterall, the man she chose to honour said, in 2021, that women should not be shown in advertisements.

He expressed disbelief that…

“ … despite having so many good-looking men in the country, advertisers still hire women to represent their brands.”

In 2021 he also backed the then Pakistan Prime Minister’s assertion that women should wear the hijab in order to protect themselves from being raped by men who were unfairly impacted by women wearing few clothes.

I could go on and on with this stuff.

But I’ll give you just one more.

In April this year Hafiz Ashrafi told journalists that the war on Iran was not about stopping the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program.

No, no. It was, instead, a plot hatched by Jews and Christians…

“… who wanted only to deprive the Iranian people of nuclear power.”

So here’s the Church of England bestowing an interfaith co-operation award on a man who blames “Jews and Christians” for what’s happening in Iran.

To add insult to injury, this award was presented on September 11.

There’s something almost breathtaking about the naivety of our public institutions.

And I think the problem is this… we keep assuming everyone wants what we want.

And we keep imagining that every culture is our culture, just with different food.

We convince ourselves that if we just offer the right award, use the right language, or bend over a little bit more, everyone will share our assumptions about liberty, equality and human dignity.

Except history proves they won’t.

And the refusal to understand that is not merely embarrassing. Sometimes it’s downright dangerous.

Because you can’t build genuine reconciliation by pretending profound differences don’t exist.

You can’t defend liberal values by assuming everyone shares them.

And you certainly can’t preserve a civilisation by congratulating people for occasionally agreeing with you while ignoring everything they have said when they don’t.

The West has spent years congratulating itself for being tolerant.

Perhaps it is time we became a little more discerning about what, exactly, we are tolerating. While we still have the chance.

Church Tapestry Lists Terrorists

While the Archbishop of Canterbury was handing out peace awards to an Islamic scholar who has praised Osama bin Laden and supported Pakistan’s blasphemy laws…

The Church of England in Leeds was putting on display a tapestry paying tribute to those killed in Gaza — including, it appears, members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Both of which, I should add, are banned terrorist groups in the UK.

Church officials said they weren’t aware that terrorists were among those named in the tapestry, which was being displayed as…

“… an act of remembrance, honouring their lives and the immense loss to humanity”.

An admirable sentiment.

Although apparently one with some interesting exclusions.

Because the tapestry does NOT include the names of Israelis murdered when Hamas invaded Israel on October 7.

Church Rector Paul Maybury was asked why dead Jews were not recognised.

Canon Paul Maybury, Rector of Leeds. Image: Leeds Minster.

For instance… what about the Bibas children — two little Jewish boys kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and subsequently murdered?

A reporter asked the Rector…

“So, what’s your view on kidnapping the Bibas children, and murdering them with their bare hands after kidnapping and torturing them?”

After a long pause, the Rector replied…

“I understand that the history is complex.”

After being pressed to condemn the murder of two little Jewish boys, the church leader finally conceded this…

“I condemn all killing.”

So the deaths of Palestinians — including terrorists — are honoured specifically.

But the deaths of Jews — even two little boys — are not treated with any humanity, only with generalities.

The perverse part is that on the tapestry being displayed in the Leeds Church… the names of the murdered little boys are not recorded.

But the names of the terrorists who kidnapped and murdered those little boys may well be listed on the honour roll.

The “Free Palestine” mind virus is incredible. It even makes church leaders destroy their own moral compass and embrace Islamist killers.

Or maybe that’s just what happens to a church that decides they no longer believe their own message.

They start scratching about for a cause to ally with in the absence of their own members — most of whom fled long ago.

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Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report. Originally titled, “When Tolerance Becomes Moral Blindness”.

Image via Neil Turner/Lambeth Palace.